Masterpiece week Dufay

- In France Beersel-born Willemet Du Fayt – more commonly known in English as ‘Guillaume Dufay’ or ‘Du Fay’ – became the most celebrated composer of his day.

- L’homme armé was one of the most recognisable melodies of the European Renaissance. For dozens of composers – the first one perhaps Dufay himself – it offered the ideal theme for a Mass

- L’homme armé – the armed man – was painfully topical, because in 1453, the year the Missa was composed, the Ottoman army captured Constantinople and ended the Byzantine Empire.

- An unknown copyist included the famous Missa in the original Bruges Lucca Choirbook.

- The Van Eyck portrait above may be of Dufay.